Italy's former royal family returned home at the weekend after 57 years in exile - to a barrage of criticism that threatened to overshadow the lavish parties and welcoming dinners.

The three-day visit to Naples by Prince Victor Emmanuel, the 65-year-old head of the House of Savoy, his wife, Marina Doria, and their son, Emmanuel Filiberto, 30, was intended to be a grand official homecoming from Switzerland.

Instead, Victor Emmanuel's expressions of "love" for his native land have been met by hostility in Naples - where he was born and from where he sailed into exile at the age of 9 - and derision throughout much of Italy.

The family has lived in exile since 1946, when the male line was banished after the late King Victor Emmanuel III, the prince's grandfather, collaborated with Mussolini's Fascist regime.

Their return was orchestrated by Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right Italian Government, which pushed Parliament to lift the constitutional ban last year. But feelings still run deep. ");document.write("

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Posters lambasting the royal family as "traitors of Italy" and "slaughterers of the south" have appeared around Naples - the latter a reference to the rough treatment meted out to southern "brigands" when the Savoys became rulers of a newly united Italy in the 19th century.

There is added hostility in the south because Naples was the seat of the rival Bourbon dynasty until it was displaced by the Savoys.

Outside Naples Cathedral, where the Savoys were to attend Mass, the hard-right Movimento Sociale is planning a sit-in, demanding that the family apologise for their wrongs.

An impulsive man, the present-day Victor Emmanuel, who has renounced all claims to the throne, did little to enhance the family reputation when, five years ago, he described Mussolini's racial laws as "not all that bad".

Some, at least, were clamouring to see him. Naples socialites battled for invita-tions to drinks at the Circolo dell'Unione, the city's stuffiest club, or to a gala dinner at the glitzy Vesuvius Hotel, where the Savoys are staying.

But to the Savoys' astonishment, the city's mayor, Rosa Russo Jervolino, turned down a donation by the prince, claiming it was a publicity stunt.

She said the family had wanted a plaque unveiled in Victor Emmanuel's honour. "Charity must be done quietly and not ostentatiously," she said.